A segment on the CBS Sunday Morning program was devoted to Theo Jansen, and you can find videos about him and his kinetic sculptures all over the Internet.  I found one of his lectures on TED Talks interesting as he explains how his beach-walking animals sense that they’re walking in water and the primitive “brain” he’s created has them back away.

I thought it was a clever solution.

http://www.ted.com/talks/theo_jansen_creates_new_creatures.html

Wow, impressive. Thanks for making me/us aware of that. This could be a very important foundation for new types of structures at sea or on Mars, for example. Basically he has taken the behavior of single-celled animals and their molecules that give them life-like behavior, then enlarged those into larger structures that have the same general kind of behavior that involves locomotion, sensing, etc. With such basic functions pushed off into the hardware, structures such as houses, ships, submarines, blimps, and more could be self-sustaining, which could allow such structures to survive for long periods of time in hostile environments where they could not survive before, say at Antarctica, on the high seas, and so on.

I even liked that the female narrator used the preferred pronunciation of the word “species”, which is becoming rarer to hear nowadays. And those walking legs are a very cool design. Very nice video and terrific ideas altogether, I thought.

Thanks, Mark.  Other world exploration was my first thought, too, providing there was enough wind… or even solar power available.  Certainly a less expensive rover.  He still has a lot of work to do, but I find the idea of these things roaming the beaches of the Earth after he’s passed away intriguing, as long as they’re not running over children and dogs on the beach.  Sadly, I don’t believe it would be long before they would be vandalized without security people monitoring them.

Pretty cool machines. Made me think about Da vinci. Could be a replacement for the wheel indeed for tough terrain.

I think it’s a fascinating concept, but right now they look a little flimsy.

> http://www.meta-guide.com/home/bibliography/google-scholar/best-theo-jansen-videos

Lots of cool Theo Jansen videos available online.

> http://books.google.com/books?id=jQ6wnANsyjkC

2011 Book: Sublime Dreams of Living Machines: The Automaton in the European Imagination, by Minsoo Kang

> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jk0JmZ9xYII

Video: “Junod’s Wonderland” .. about automatons by Swiss “automatier” Francois Junod http://francoisjunod.com

I had seen these on UK TV a while back, but it’s great to see some more detail on them.  Thanks Thunder - I will keep an eye out for more and I hope they come to a beach near me soon

Also impressive is that the inventor demonstrates seeming awareness of two general principles that few people know about: (1) there exist rolling objects of equal width that are not round…

Round Triangles!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MhD2xZVypo

...and (2) some living organisms, namely sand crabs, actually do keep a count of waves, like a mechanical counter. In an oceanography course I took, our teacher explained that the way sand crabs know when to relocate to another part of the beach is when they have experienced 2 (or was it 3?) wet-dry cycles of a wave wetting the sand then the sand drying. If they dug out of their holes every time the sand dried, they might get hit by another wave just as they got out. But with a simple count, they avoid getting washed around and also avoid drying out completely. I couldn’t find a reference to this interesting fact online, but that bizarre fact that such simple animals can literally keep a count always intrigued me, and stuck in my memory.

Thunder Walk - Dec 5, 2012:

Other world exploration was my first thought, too, providing there was enough wind… or even solar power available.  Certainly a less expensive rover.

Yes, think of much lighter it would be than the Mars rovers currently in use! Maybe all those poles could automatically unfold upon landing.

Thunder Walk - Dec 5, 2012:

Sadly, I don’t believe it would be long before they would be vandalized without security people monitoring them.

Remember: Basic functions pushed into hardware! Like defense. Maybe a little acid that is sun-fermented inside the tubes that squirts out when disturbed…

Mark Atkins - Dec 6, 2012:

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Thunder Walk - Dec 5, 2012:

Sadly, I don’t believe it would be long before they would be vandalized without security people monitoring them.

Remember: Basic functions pushed into hardware! Like defense. Maybe a little acid that is sun-fermented inside the tubes that squirts out when disturbed…

 

I think there might be some liability associated with that idea, and it’s probably illegal.

A few years back, there was a store owner who got tired of having his business broken into, so he installed a device that electrocuted the next burglar, and was then arrested for manslaughter.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2519&dat=19861006&id=hHRiAAAAIBAJ&sjid=E3cNAAAAIBAJ&pg=2165,936467

Roger Davie - Dec 5, 2012:

I had seen these on UK TV a while back

Was this on QI by any chance Roger? I remember Stephen Fry demonstrating a miniature one of these that had been created by a 3D printer. Fascinating stuff.

I think it was Steve now you mention it, yes I remember the 3D printer and how it could print things that had moving parts.  I watch QI a lot, great program.